Saturday, November 28, 2009

Last summer, when I traveled a for a day in Poland with the banjo great Tony Trischka after he performed at the Silesia Country Music Festival in Ustron, he told me about his plans to start teaching the banjo online, with an interactive video tutorial program that enabled personal feedback.

Tony's banjo school is part of a broader online music school called Artist Works, with instruments taught by leading musicians. It looks like the instruments and teaching programs are going live one at a time. I am hoping that the harmonica school goes online soon....

A large man with a full beard, Willie was one of the first people I met in the European country and western music scene, and he has provided me with a lot of anecdote and insight. I actually met him at Pullman City, on my first visit there - I think it was in 2003. Willie had remained in Germany after getting out of the service and took up a career as a country singer, in various bands, most notably one called Shady Mix, which started out in America, moved to Germany and then moved back to the U.S.

When I met him, Willie had a job as the "singing cowboy" of Pullman City -- he gave set performances in the theme park's saloon, but he also roamed around the area, playing and singing.

We hit it off from the start. That weekend, Willie had some Slovak musician friends -- a bluegrass band -- playing at Pullman. I was working on a story for the New York Times about wild west theme parks in Europe, and I had intended to go directly from Pullman City to the Silkluv Mlyn theme park in the Czech Republic.

Willie convinced me, though, to go with him and the Slovak band (some of whose members now form the group Grasscountry) to a country road house somewhere in southern Bohemia for a country western party. Of course I said yes, and we drove there in a sort of convoy -- Willie in one car, the Slovak guys in their car, and me trailing in mine.

As I posted in this blog earlier:

The road house was in a village too small to appear on my map. From the outside it looked like an anonymous village restaurant, but inside it was decorated with Wild West paraphernalia including horseshoes, sepia photographs of Native Americans and Billy the Kid, and a framed arrangement of pistols and playing cards.

The occasion for the party was the 50th birthday of Franz Zetihammel, a figure well known on the Czech and German western show circuit for his portrayals “Fuzzy,” an “old coot” persona harking back to characters played by comic western actors such as Gabby Hayes or Walter Brennan. Fuzzy has long straggly grey hair and beard and never appears in public without his cowboy hat, cowboy boots and turquoise bolo tie and other jewelry.

A Czech country duo got the guests up and dancing with locally written Czech country songs and Czech covers of American hits such as John Denver’s “Country Roads” and even “I’m and Okie from Muskokee.”

One of the party guests, a man in his forties, was dressed head to toe in full cowboy attire, including sheriff’s star and a six-shooter – which Fuzzy at one point pulled from its holster, brandished at the dancers and then fired at the ceiling – fortunately, it was loaded with blanks....

(I haven't been back to that place -- I'm sure I could never find it again. But I ran into Fuzzy last year [that is, 2007]; he was working as the blacksmith at the Halter Valley private wild west town near Pilsen in CZ.)

"Fuzzy" at Halter Valley, 2007. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

I'm hoping to be able to get to Pullman City while Willie is there, as I haven't seen him for several years.

He moved to Texas in 2005, and the last time I saw him was in May of that year -- I visited him where he was living near Templin, north of Berlin, and he took me to explore an abandoned former Soviet army base nearby. Willie and his wife had moved there to work for a new Wild West theme park, Silver Lake City, which -- at that point -- had gone bust. So they picked up and moved to the real west. The park has since reopened as Eldorado. I have yet to see it in action... Willie took me on a tour of Silver Lake City out of season in the winter of 2005, but almost everything was shut.

The American folk legend Peter Rowan, currently on a short tour mainly in the UK, headlines the festival. Also featured are the veteran Polish country music singer Lonstar (about whom I have written on this blog), the British New Essex Bluegrass Band (one of the winners of last summer's European Bluegrass Festival in La Roche sur Foron, France) and the Russian group Country Saloon.

Lonstar reports that in September he concluded a tour pegged to his latest CD, "What's This Country Thing."

Twenty four concerts all over Poland and abroad: Cologne and Wittenberge in Germany, Piestany in Slovakia and Visaginas in Lithuania, among many others. In their number – big international festivals, songwriter recitals, club dates and acoustic “unplugged” performances at the meetings with his fans.

When the smoke cleared and the results were revealed at the award-granting ceremony, the famous formula “...and the winner is... “ was followed by the name “Lonstar!” four times, as the recipient of awards for the Artist of the Year, Best Male Vocalist, Song of the Year and Best Album.

The very title, “What’s This Country Thing”, due to its reflective and provocative lyrics of the respective song has gained the status of the cult definition of country music in Poland’s country music fan circles. Thank you fans for your continuous support!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

The Western Way Magazine has published a shortened version of the long paper on European country music I presented last year at the International Conference on Country Music and elsewhere. It can be downloaded at the web site of the Western Music Association, but I am also posting it here in jpg form. (Note that the caption on the picture of pg 40 is wrong -- these guys were at the Country Piknik Festival in Poland, not at Pullman City.) The full version of this essay can be accessed via the link in the side bar of this blog.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

I just want to point out that the Texas Renaissance Festival is on in Plantersville, TX, until the end of this month. If you look at the video on the web site and think cowboy gear and country music instead of medieval get-ups, you will have Pullman City, Cowboyland Italy, Sikluv Mlyn Czech Republic and all the rest.....but maybe bigger? The Renfest's Facebook page has more than 20,000 fans....

Welcome to the Imaginary Wild West

For several years I've been exploring the imaginary wild west in contemporary Europe -- observing and experiencing the many ways that Europeans embrace the mythology of the American Frontier to enhance, imbue or create their own identities. (Or, indeed, just have fun.) On this blog I will post pictures, stories and links relating to this multi-faceted subculture, from European country music to rodeos, theme parks, round-ups and saloons....

About Me

I'm an American writer, photographer, and public speaker long based in Europe. I've chronicled Jewish cultural developments and other contemporary European Jewish issues for more than 20 years and currently coordinate the web site www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu. My latest books are "National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe," published in 2007, and "Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere)," published in 2008.
I also am working on "Sturm, Twang and Sauerkraut Cowboys: Imaginary Wild Wests in Contemporary Europe," an exploration of the American West in the European imagination for which I won a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEH summer stipend grant. In 2015 I was the Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston, SC.